A federal judge has just refused to throw out a request from James O’Keefe, who infamously and secretly filmed an ACORN worker while pretending to be a pimp. The selectively-edited video, emblematic of O’Keefe’s ugly brand of journalism, ultimately led to the unfunding of ACORN by Congress and its subsequent bankruptcy.
“Juan Carlos Vera sued O’Keefe and his associate Hanna Giles in Federal Court on privacy claims, after O’Keefe secretly filmed Vera at an ACORN office in National City in 2009,” Courthouse News reported:
The now-famous series of ACORN recordings featured O’Keefe posing as pimp, dressed in a chinchilla coat, while Giles was disguised as a prostitute.
“The edited video depicted plaintiff as conspiring to promote an underage prostitution business by agreeing to help defendants file fraudulent tax forms and smuggle underage girls from Mexico,” U.S. District Judge M. James Lorenz wrote in his order denying defendants’ request for summary judgment.
Vera, who said he contacted police shortly after the activists’ peculiar visit, sued them in the summer of 2010.
O’Keefe sought summary judgment, claiming that Vera had no expectation of privacy when the conversation was taped.
But Judge Lorenz found a “genuine dispute as to whether plaintiff’s [Vera’s] expectation of privacy was reasonable.”
“ACORN is in the business of providing counseling and support for the community on various matters,” Lorenz wrote. “By its very nature, the organization handles personal matters with individual clients. Defendants walked into ACORN and asked for plaintiff’s help with tax forms. … Specifically, they solicited his help with setting up an illegal prostitution business with underaged girls. … Plaintiff, as a worker for an organization like ACORN, reasonably believed that the content of the conversation was sensitive enough that it would remain private.”
O’Keefe duped Vera by asking if the conversation would remain confidential, before he launched into details of the nonexistent scheme, Lorenz wrote.
Over the course of a 40-minute conversation, Lorenz noted, the three “abruptly paused their conversation” after Vera’s supervisor, David Lagstein, entered the office, and continued talking after the supervisor left.
“Based on the surrounding circumstances, plaintiff reasonably believed that the conversation was private because it was held in his office with no one else present, and he believed that no one else was listening in on his conversation,” Lorenz wrote.
Because of this “genuine dispute,” Lorenz denied O’Keefe’s motion for summary judgment.
Pretrial hearing are set for October 15.